Quilting the Orphan Block Quilt

Picking up from the post on Sarah’s blog about using an orphan block, here is the finished flimsy after adding the squares, bars and border. If you missed that post, click HERE to see the construction of the orphan block flimsy.

I loaded it on the longarm, auditioned threads, and once again settled on that muddy light brown that just goes with everything. I picked a simple floral design pantograph and began quilting away.

Going along nicely, it seemed.

How delightful to get to the bottom and see it is still square! Putting borders on with the measure and cut method pays off again.

Then I went to check the back of the quilt, and found this.

And another run in another spot of loopy top thread.

This was monumentally frustrating! There is no good reason for this. The thread was the same, I didn’t run out of bobbin thread, these were just short runs of the tension being off, and then correcting itself without me ever knowing anything was amiss. Since this is going to be donated, I had to fix it.

I marked the beginning and end of the bad stitching with big pins so I could find the spots on the top. Doesn’t look like there is anything wrong here, but there was.

Here is the other section. You’d never know anything was off from the top side!

I clipped the thread on the backside and pulled the top thread out.

From the top side, I can see the holes from the previous stitching.

I resewed the lines by freemotion from the front of the machine, tying off the threads at each end of the run. There’s a wobble in it, but I don’t think the recipient will mind.

Both areas now fixed. The quilt was removed from the frame and trimmed.

I like the overall quilting, and you really cannot tell where the bad stitching used to be.

I used a pansy pantograph, which shows up nicely in the white areas of the center block.

Binding by hand in red, another nice day of slow stitching, and it was done.

18 thoughts on “Quilting the Orphan Block Quilt”

The quilt turned out great! That was so nice of you to share your little hiccup in your quilting. You did a great job repairing it and no one will know but you (and those of us on the blog!). I like how you were able to make something out of that one orphan block.

Thanks to the readers who asked, here is what I did with the threads. For the part I pulled out, I clipped the bobbin thread and the top thread in the middle of the run, pulled out the threads back to good stitching, then tied them and buried them. For the new stitching, I brought up the bobbin thread at the beginning leaving a long tail on both bobbin and top threads. Then after I re-sewed the part following the holes, I again brought the bobbin to the top side and left long tails when I clipped the threads. Then, I tied knots with the two thread ends on each end, and buried the tails. Hope that helps!

Hello Carole! Your quilt has turned out so adorable with all of your pretty fabrics on the quilt top surrounding the orphan block that is a lovely center and to add all of your special quilting, where as everyone else has noted…no one will know buy you and us where those darned little threads wobbled on the backside. You fixed perfectly. I do hope you share with everyone how you do start and end those threads! I am learning how to hand piece and all information, such as this, is very helpful to me. Boy am I ever slow, yet really enjoying it also. I did not end up accomplishing much yesterday, like I had hoped, my Mother ended up being admitted into the hospital due to her COPD. Really did not learn much about any of it yesterday, so hoping to today! I hope that you have a great day!

What a cute project. Hearing how you managed this fix is helpful!! I have a friend who collects lots of the orphan blocks that get “donated to the guild via me”; and she does wonders with them, creating quilts for the various charities our guild supports. I remind her all the time that she does lovely work, and her quilting is improving with every quilt.

How annoying for you to find the tension problems, you did a great job of fixing it though and it ended up a lovely quilt which will make someone very happy. I hope you eventually get to the bottom of it.

I like how the orphan block became the center and focal point of your finished quilt. It is very frustrating when the bobbin thread does odd things unexpectedly. I’m glad you caught the problem areas before you took the quilt off the frame and were able to quickly fix the areas.

I really like the finish of the orphan block, I gotta couple orphans myself that I can use now. And thanks for showing how you fixed the loose thread, and your explanation in the comments. I almost always read the comments. I find them interesting and sometimes
helpful.

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